I kept track last year, although I didn't like to look at it after awhile either. Things got a lot more pricey than I had anticipated. That spending considered, as well as the fact we have a baby on the way this year, I'm really going to make a concious effort to cut spending from last year in half - at least. Its time to make the choices of what to drop and what to keep. Here's my tally so far for January, and I don't intend to pick anything else up this month unless the second part of the "Final 22" shows up.

I hadn't see this thread before, so '07 will be my first year of really looking at this. I'm sure glad my Kubrick series 7 binge was December... and I made a December 31st purchase of loose kubs from Doc, so those don't count

My prediction in one thread or another was that Hasbro would see a few hundred dollars from me this year, so I'll have to watch that one.

I'm also trading and selling some stuff, so I will just keep updating a number each month to adjust

March $53.00misc figures- some retail, some the local collector club $30.00GH Durge set and Momaw set $13.00Another gamorrean brick $10.00

April ($450 in the black)I purchased a bunch of kubricks, cleaned out a bunch of stuff, and will be purging again soon. I am starting to thin out the collection, and I think it is time to make some more drastic cuts. But I bought a 400% shadow stormtrooper, so I guess I'm not completely out of the purchasing game...

May ($300 in the black)More selling and returning, plus some small purchases. I'm in for about $75 worth of clearance order 66 packs, and may get a few more if I can find them. I caved and bought the Kubrick 07 5 pack on ebay, because I fear BBTS isn't going to come through. If they do, I end up with a couple more snowtroopers, so I can live with that. This month's total is more of a guess, but it should be pretty accurate. If I can unload the carded collection, I may end up on the plus side by July.

June sucked for many reasons. Call it even, I don't think I bought or sold a thing.

I had to go through old bank statements and paypal records to figure these last few months out.

August- ($200 in the black)

September - ($300 in the black)

October- $150Looks like I found a rash of figures I liked- I ended up getting more stormtroopers than I originally intended (22 instead of zero)

November- ($1800 in the black)90% of this was selling my pinball machine

December- darn near even as close as I can tell. I picked up the battlefront sets, target GH sets, 4 hoth battle packs that I parted most of out and sold a bunch of stuff I just didn't want to keep moving around.

So put me down for actually coming out $1300 or so ahead for the year. My collection changed a bit, I picked up more TAC than I originally intended, but not anywhere near what I did with saga in 06. Now it is time to break out the TAC figures and find out exactly how many I ended up with.

You know, something that has really amazed me since taking part in the "challenge" and keeping track of things is how easily things add up with collecting. I rarely, if ever, buy anything that would be considered "high end" and mainly stick to the Hasbro/cheaper stuff. I think I had two purchases that were $50 last year - a GG Chewie bust and a POTF2 AT-AT (thanks Mikey!) Even though the prices sometimes seem high for the figures, it is probably one of the cheapest things to collect from the Star Wars universe, on an individual basis. But really, just collecting that can put you in the $800-$1000 range. I collect a few things from Spidey/Marvel and DC on occasion too, but I'm not completist with any of my collections and things still seem to get out of hand. I was in the $1000 range for the year last year (a lot for me), and hope to cut back considerably (half) this year.

I thought to myself, well the Marvel stuff should be slowing down overall, so I'll basically be sticking to Star Wars and some Spidey beyond that, so that should be cheaper. But, when you start figuring the Star Wars basic line - without buying duplicates or anything - you're looking at at least 60 figures, probably more, 12-15 comic packs, some battlepacks, basic ($20) ships, most likely a couple of exclusive beasts/ships, and some other miscellaneous stuff along the way. If you just bought one of each of those, or most of those, you'd be spending quite a bit. I remember collecting in the POTJ days on a budget of $25-$30 a month, and as much as I'd like to do that now, it is more of a struggle. Anyways, back on topic, it has just been amazing (and eye opening) to me how quickly this "little stuff" can add up in the course of a year. Yikes.

At one time, I was really considering trying to collect the Sideshow 12" line - just sticking to the OT characters/figures to keep it more "manageable" - but this is an example of why I decided not to. Although their product is amazing, and I'm glad I picked up the Bespin Han, it just gets way too expensive for me personally. Even if I could somehow give up the 3 3/4" line (which I don't think I could), I wouldn't be saving anything, because I think it would be more expensive in the long run, throughout a year's time. Again, its great product, but I just can't afford it.